Pokémon Sinnoh Chronicles: Growing Pains
by Graealsting
Summary: We humans live alongside Pokémon as friends. At times we play together, and at other times we work together. Some people use their Pokémon to battle and develop closer bonds with them. These two boys, however, have no idea what the hell they're doing.
1. The brash and the curious

_Sometimes our aspirations appear to be oceans away from recognition, and the current seems to sway us in every way but the one leading to satisfaction. However, motivation is a storm that can split apart the most stagnant seas and lead to paradise. Let's stir the storm of progress together, you and I. _

* * *

**Poké****mon Sinnoh Chronicles: Growing Pains. (part 1) **

Verity Lakefront was the definitive natural picture of solace and tranquility. Pristine cerulean tides washed seamlessly into the picturesque emerald blades of grass on the bay that sent wafts of perpetual springtime into the air, making sweet love to the smoky musk of aged wood to the west and east. The lakefront was a small, veritable portrait of Earth wearing its best Sunday gown that could only have been painted by a tender-handed god…and then down came the massive, eager hand of an officious child smack into the middle of the divine painting, crushing the proud trees, smearing the emerald grass with pristine water and penetrating the passionate scents of the forest with the stink of stagnant peanut butter and grape jelly.

This destructive, golden-haired offender to all things natural and calm stood a staggering four feet tall, four feet and two to three inches if he bounced on his heels as he was prone to do. The wrathful grass-stomper whipped his blonde head back into the air and violently flared his nostrils to take a long and deliberate survey of the smells around him, and then cupped his twitching hands in front of his gaping mouth as if to funnel his cry to all the heavens above him:

"WA-HOO! We're gonna catch us a shitload'a pokémon!_ Chaaaw_! Ahaha!"

The yellow-head's excited war cry broke the calm of the lakefront like a stone through invisible glass, and was punctuated by his sputtering laughter and then a deliberate extended index finger pointed at his reluctant partner in crime, standing no more than three feet behind him. The war crier's navy-haired accomplice seemed to be mortified even with only the two of them there, a red flush burning across his cheeks and his mouth sternly hidden below a comically enormous ivory scarf coiled about his neck, partially in stitches; if he could have fit his entire face behind the scarf after his friend's outburst, he would have.

"_Barry_…_!_" said a muffled, high voice from within the white fabric, "You really shouldn't swear that loudly…we're not even supposed to _be_ here…!" The golden forest-offender, now known as Barry, spun around on the dot to face his friend with surprising speed and started spastically shaking his head about while tapping his right index finger on his forehead excitedly. "Ah-ah-ah, my friend!" Barry clicked his tongue and proclaimed. "We're both a whole seven years old starting today! We can go wherever, do whatever, and say whatever we want, Lucas!" With that statement, Barry bit his lip, beamed from ear to ear, looked both ways and then spread his arms out to scream to the sky, "COCK!"

That was enough. Lucas charged his foul-mouthed friend into the trunk of an adjacent tree and slapped two small hands over his mouth to prevent further spirited expletives. "Barry, they will hear us all the way back in Twinleaf if you keep that up, and we'll be in even _bigger_ trouble…!" Barry sifted his eyes left and right at an alarming, epileptic pace before squeezing them shut tightly and then letting out an uncharacteristic sigh. ".. I guess you're right."

Victorious and yet still exasperated, Lucas backed off of his companion and dusted the soil and brush off of his formal, deep blue slacks; he was not dressed for the wilderness and this was _not_ how he had planned to spend his seventh birthday. Still, when Barry set his mind on something, nothing short of satisfaction or unconsciousness would sway his desire, and Lucas had silently elected not to simply club him in the back of the head as usual when he had brought up the ludicrous prospect of _"sneaking away from the party and going to Verity Lakefront to catch birthday pokémon__. Chaaw!"_

"Well…" Lucas clasped his hands together and sucked in his cheeks before half-heartedly inquiring, "What do we do now, Mr. Pokéman?"Barry leapt to his feet without using his arms and pounded his outstretched chest before deflating and saying matter-of-factly, "I don't know." Lucas would have slugged his friend in the teeth right then and there if said friend hadn't hastily waved his hands about and explained "Y-You're the one with the handy dandy pokémon guide. Why don't we use that?" Lucas stilled his trembling fist and remembered that he had brought _The Official Pokemon Handbook: Sinnoh Region Category _and had tucked it away in the long, overlapping folds of the unfinished scarf around his neck.

Lucas was not yet quite adept at coiling the scarf about him, and so it hung off his shoulders haphazardly and trailed the ground to make him look more like a pouty, half-wrapped mummy than the small, dashing heartbreaker he liked to envision himself as. Nevertheless, the enormous scarf his mother had been in the process of knitting for served to keep a miniature pokémon handbook he had gotten as a gift flush to his shoulder *_and_* had prevented Barry from simply stuffing the it right down the back of his new slacks and pushing him into the wild for some grand escapade; well, the latter had already happened, but at least he didn't have a book chafing his butt.

Lucas drew the handbook from his shoulder, and what seemed like milliseconds later, had tufts of blonde hair partially blinding him and a sharp chin digging into his collarbone increasingly harder to get a better look at the cover. "WHOA." Barry breathed excitedly as he marveled at the golden trim and holographic illustrations of pokémon running, flying, and seemingly preparing to defend themselves. "This book kicks ass!" Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Barry, I haven't even opened it.."-"Open the book! Open the book!" He was interjected by Barry before he could squeeze out another sentence. Typical. The handbook appeared to have essentially everything a civilian of Sinnoh needed to know in order to acceptably coexist with the endearing life forms known as pokémon; habitual patterns, defense mechanisms, regional migratory periods, how to prepare in fricassee, etc.

Lucas didn't have that much of an implanted passion for the tradition older people referred to as "battling", as it reminded him too much of the battles running rampant in his own world; ever since his father had been stationed in that faraway post in Hoenn where he'd be separated from the family for an undisclosed amount of time, tension had been abound in his household until his abrupt departure. Papa had been a good man, and Lucas was sure of it; he had only transferred to Hoenn to become apart of some association of environmentally conscious pokémon freedom fighters, whatever that meant. Nevertheless, Papa's geologically sensitive sentiments didn't coincide with mother's almost desperately passionate attachment to her family, and above all, her husband. When he had wrenched away from her, both figuratively and literally, he seemed to take her love with him in his coat pocket; Mother hadn't mentioned Papa in two years. That was why Lucas was certain he would never put pokémon through the physical strain that mirrored the emotional stress he experienced in his own household; he was going to be a designer for people and pokémon alike, and with that, with every needle he used to stitch together a scarf or ribbon, it would feel as if he could stitch together his broken home…at least, that was the plan.

Lucas had been so entangled in his own introversion that he was deaf to his friend's hyperventilating and squeals at something in the distant jade blur of the forest. The unaware instigator of Barry's excitement trotted to and fro on four short, hardy legs and occasionally supported itself on the hind two as if in order to survey the ambience of the wooded calm. It rotated its head to the side as if perplexed by something particularly strange, and then lowered itself back on all fours as if dismissing the object as either uninteresting or giving up on deciphering it altogether; that was, until it actually found something. Two somethings, to be exact, not even fifteen yards to the east. Lucas cleared his throat but silently anticipated sudden movement.

Barry beamed a toothy, hellish grin and was near-audibly trembling with an excited word that bounced around in his belly and throat and was suppressed only by his jaw shut tightly like iron; the word escaped in a steaming hiss through the cracks of his teeth. _"Biiiiiiiiii…"_, Barry half whispered and half exhaled. Lucas flipped through the handbook at an urgent pace to follow his excitable companion's strange exposition of speech, and found within the first few pages of its data. Barry flitted his straw-toned mop of hair from side to side, up and down, from the book and to the object of his elation, and let out a girlish cry _"…Dooo~ooof!"_

Lucas narrowed his dark eyes and let his sight meet the rounded, bushy visage of the newly categorized pokémon. While the beady, pitch orbs that the pokémon had for eyes seemed to lack any soulful motivation, something didn't seem right about the coarse fur on the brawn on its humped back that seemed to stand at attention. According to the book, Bidoof weren't known for being critically hostile, but the _critically_ had been italicized. This wild one dubbed in the handbook as the Simple Pokemon methodically clicked its sizable buck teeth, padded the dirt in front of with a tiny black paw, and then, before either of them could properly react, powerfully bounded in their direction as a white and forceful aura developed around its body as it unleashed a bizzare cry that would be etched into their minds from that day forward: _**DERP!**_

**----Part Two coming eventually----**


	2. The screwed and the boned

_Sometimes our aspirations appear to be oceans away from recognition, and the current seems to sway us in every way but the one leading to satisfaction. However, motivation is a storm that can split apart the most stagnant seas and lead to paradise. Let's stir the storm of progress together, you, me, and pok_é_mon_.

* * *

**(Previously:**_ According to the book, Bidoof weren't known for being critically hostile, but the critically had been italicized. This wild one dubbed in the handbook as the Simple Pokemon methodically clicked its sizable buck teeth, padded the dirt in front of with a tiny black paw, and then, before either of them could properly react, powerfully bounded in their direction as a white and forceful aura developed around its body as it unleashed a bizarre cry that would be etched into their minds from that day forward: **DERP!**_**)**

**

* * *

  
**

If Lucas wasn't such an exemplary example of being dapper and level-minded in his youth, he would have soiled his formal slacks. Pain. Incoming pain. An imminent, singular force with intentions that equated to no less than kicking his sorry ass now barreled at him like a furious, buck-toothed bullet. He had to think of something to save both of their doomed hides, and fast. He had to think as quickly and decisively as his underdeveloped seven year old noggin would permit him, and finally formulated a razor-sharp plan of action that would rival some of the greatest strategic coups to ever be conceived by the world's most innovative and ingenious leaders; he stood paralyzed like a deer in headlights and shouted "Barry! Get the hell out of the way!"-_**THWUMP! **_

Too late. Barry took a speeding cannonball of Bidoof to his pelvis and was sent careening backwards in the dirt with his ankles over his ears until his skid was forcefully halted by his head meeting the base of a tree trunk.

"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!" Lucas grunted an expletive through his teeth with every step as he sprinted and then slid to kneel over to his prone friend, who looked comical and helpless with on the ground a face full of his own crotch. Not too far behind him, Lucas could detect the telltale _shrip-shrip_ of a small paw treading the dirt once more. "Barry! Oh my god, can you even hear me?" After a sizable effort and quite a few painful sounding cracks and pops, Barry managed to lower his legs and dislodge his face from his crotch to wheeze, "N-now I can...". Lucas didn't know whether to nervously choke in laughter or sigh in bated relief.

Still on his back, Barry raised a quivering index finger towards the base of Lucas' neck and choked out "Th-the book...check the book!" Lucas' eyes widened in realization at his companion's demand and he swiftly withdrew The Official Pokémon Handbook: Sinnoh Region Category from his scarf and flipped to the page detailing Bidoof's prowess in battle. Scanning through an abridged paragraph of its typical movements and attack patterns, before laying eyes on a particularly bold section text. Lucas looked up from the pages and stared down Barry with wide and desperate eyes as he exclaimed, "This thing is an absolute monster! Its only weaknesses are fighting moves!"

Barry closed his eyes and nodded assent before an all-too-familiar smirk that likened to every bad idea ever crossed his lips. Not even attempting to arise from his sprawled position on the forest floor, he breathed in, gave Lucas a strong thumbs-up and said, "Then you know what you gotta do. Go get 'em, buddy."

Once again, if Lucas wasn't such an exemplary example of being dapper and level-minded in his youth, he would have slapped his already injured friend across the face. "A-are you daft?! Look what it did to you!" Lucas pleaded to Barry with all the reasonable power he could muster into his tone. Barry simply smiled and shook his head before stating matter-of-factually, "You gotta do this for our honor, bro. Look behind you."

Lucas craned his neck around to where the Bidoof was still standing and felt his jaw slightly drop at what it was doing; it was supporting itself on its hind legs, and had an upside down paw extended towards the both of them with one tiny black digit erected upwards to the trees that it pumped up and down. "Barry...is that thing..." Lucas slowly shook his head and made did rapid double-take. "Is that Bidoof flicking us off!? Where the heck did it learn to do that?!"

Barry's face took on a more serious hue as he raised his two fists in front his face and proclaimed, "Questions later." He made a few right and left hooks into the air in front of him, and he and Lucas both said "**Butt kicking now.**" Lucas and Barry pounded a fist before Barry let his head hit the grass behind him and let his hand wander to massage his burning groin. Lucas was already standing at attention, shoulders braced, eyes aflame, and his face set into an intense and yet solemn scowl. He began to walk. The Bidoof no longer had them in its sight, as it was then preoccupied with swaying its tan-furred rear from left to right in their direction and punctuated each motion of its behind with a mocking "**Derp**!" Lucas was now sprinting harder than he ever had in his short life, perhaps because now he had a driving purpose to put energy into his strides. Only three yards now until the target would be within range. Ten feet..five...Lucas let loose a high, piercing howl that put the forest in near still-life as his right leg stretched out back behind him and froze in perfect form, parallel to his back, before it came whirling back in the opposite direction to make touchdown with its intended target. Barry beamed, still trying to ease the pain in his nether regions. A flock of Starly erupted from the trees and made off to parts unknown, as long as they were far from there. The Bidoof halted mockingly swaying its rear at the boys and made an effort get a view of what was causing the sudden drafty gust behind it and inquired to no one in particular, "**Derp?**". Lucas screamed "_AAAAAAAIIIYAAAH!" _and let his leg rip down to greet the impact.

_**KATHWAM!**_

Polished, size six leather dress shoe slammed into furry Bidoof rump.

* * *

Johanna was a woman of immeasurable patience and tact in the face of all hell breaking loose. She had a singular, brilliant aura about her that could charm the very sun to tip its burning golden hat to her and shine into the wee hours of twilight; however, right then and there, that facade of coolness was melting like an ice cube on a sweltering sidewalk. She could deal with pressure fairly easily, given surmountable circumstances. Persistent bill collectors? No problem; financial instability was just one of those things a single mother had to be prepared to combat with whatever she could find in her life's utility belt. Her rank as a master pokémon coordinator being challenged? For naught; she could make a Rhydon pirouette on cue before smashing in the head of a Pikachu or Clefairy belonging to some no-name hopeful kid in a suit, all the while making it look fabulous.

Her only son, Lucas, disappearing from not only the house, but from Twinleaf altogether? Off to parts unknown on his seventh birthday, along with the boy from next door who, according to his mother, had to take his Ritalin through a blowgun? She moaned morosely. Her flushing, stress-bitten face was buried in the palm of her hand as she rose from the loveseat opposite the open patio screen door and glanced through her fingers once again at the spectacle that had greeted her when she had emerged from the kitchen. Two potato sacks had been propped up in the chairs where they boys had been ever so "patiently" waiting, with a hastily scribbled crayon message on a napkin between them saying, _"WERE ARE OFF TO GET POKEYMON. SSAVE THE CAEK"_. Johanna shook her head in disbelief for the umpteenth time.

"Idiots..."

* * *

_**BAP!**_

"**Derp!"**

_**THWUMP!**_

"**Derp!"**

_**WHAM!**_

"**DERP!"**

The Bidoof close to zero time to react before it got another steel-toed shoe jabbed in its side that sent it reeling. Lucas had watched a mighty decent amount of television in his day, and one of his favorite programs had been an interactive sort stationed in Veilstone City; it was called _"Eye of the Raikou", _sponsored by the Jubilife television station and hosted by none other than the sparky, hot-pink haired gym leader Maylene. She was relatively young for one to be in charge of a gym facility, but prestigious for her size-belying strength in and out of battle and startling dexterity. The show centered on various methods of up and coming youngsters and adults alike to practice practical self-defense, aided by her willing pokémon and a plethora of experience to boot. A show to bring people and pokémon together through the medium of protecting oneself and one another was quite the admirable picture.

Now, beating the living daylights out _of_ pokémon probably wasn't the kind of picture the producers had envisioned, but Lucas was far too consumed by adrenaline to worry about that then; beneath the distinguished and snappily-dressed lad there beat the heart of a zealous fighter, and that was the kind of spirit he had hoped to suppress in light of his familial situation. Adamant natured Bidoof were rapidly moving up tiers on his list of "exceptions" to the rule of never fighting, and that must have been why he had captured it in a Crasher Wake headlock and was giving it his worst noogie; Crasher Wake of the Pastoria Marsh had made guest appearances on "_Eye of the Raikou"_ to cover grappling techniques now and then, after all.

"Lucas!" Lucas whipped around to the sound of Barry signaling him and waving arms above his head, not ceasing grinding the squirming Bidoof's head with his middle and index knuckles. "We've got company, bro!" Lucas raised an eyebrow in a mixture of confusion and silent rebuttal of 'what, you want me to stop now?'. "Why do you say that?" Barry bit his lip and extended a finger at the shadowy foreground beyond Lucas and his victim; he had been so occupied with the Bidoof that he failed to detect a muffled rustle of activity that radiated from the apex of a gnarled greatwood tree.

The noise was filtered through an ominous wind rattling the leaves, and grew steadily more violent until it developed into an unrecognizable cacophony of clicks, scuttling, and guttural, animalistic exclamations.

And that was when Lucas nearly soiled himself for the second time in the day.

_**DEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRP!**_

A glorious bronze explosion erupted from the zenith of the tree, roared bloody murder to the high heavens and rocked the epicenter of the lakefront right down to the quaking earth. Bidoofs. Thousands of them seemed to blot out even the darkness of the forest and descend upon all below from the tree like thick precipitation from an emerald cloud. The force of them making impact with the ground sent sparks of pressure through Lucas and Barry's bones, and when they settled, it seemed as if the soil beneath them had ceased to exist. It appeared as if the land itself was but a cascade of brown, frilled fur and occasional ivory flashes of bared buck teeth.

The great, dusty vapor that had arisen from underground at the heart of them all crashing to the forest floor now settled, and an unearthly silence seemed to consume not only Lucas and Barry's positions, but this world and the next. Thousands of soulless, beady eyes scrutinized Lucas like an objective council, and did so for what seemed like an eternity before an painfully high-pitched squeal of distress pierced his ears and he looked down to see it emanating from the Bidoof locked in his white arms, which were nearly flush to his chest; in that instance, he had forgotten all about his small opponent and hadn't realized how tightly he had been clutching it out of reflex. That would prove to be a grave mistake, as every one of the thousand, judging black orbs in the crowd seemed to narrow in what was...indignation? Fury? Feeling his heartbeat begin to intensify, he ripped the Bidoof from his chest and strongly hurled it in an arc to send it sailing above the bristling mosh of pokémon and down onto an undisclosed, swiftly cleared patch of empty ground with a 'thwap'.

There was silence. There as a god awful silence. Such an unnerving silence that Lucas had forgotten about his 'other' little friend, who wasted no time in making himself known.

"_CHAAAAW! _WE'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!_" _

The quiet didn't last another five seconds before an unholy alliance of a thousand differently pitched cries of **"_DERRRP!_" **shattered the calm like a steamroller through a glass house on a hill, and a wrathful bronze-golden wave of Bidoof, each one indistinguishable from the next, closed in on the two seven year olds at a threateningly rapid pace.

Barry slapped a strong hand Lucas' shoulder, flashed him a zealous smile and chirped, "You got this, right?".

Lucas slowly cranked his neck towards Barry with a terminally ill-looking expression before his eyes bursts open into navy, white pools of madness and he breathed, "Maylene's television show did NOT teach CROWD CONTROL, you idiot!" Barry's face froze as if he had just been informed he himself was a woman. He made a wide "O" with his mouth and nodded understandingly before he began to hyperventilate and scream "OH, SHIII..!" before the hellish, gigantic careening force of a tanned fur freight train hit them both with the energy of a supernova.

* * *

What sounded like an insanely massive collision rang throughout the treelines that guarded the perimeter of the lakefront. A petite girl standing knee-deep in clear water intently holding a handicraft fishing rod made of oak and string was forced to snap her eyes open at the abrasively loud shock; she nearly toppled headfirst into the shallow shore current.

A sizable, golden Magikarp then darted by and forcefully snapped the pokéball lure off of the end of her handicraft, and in her upset balance and disrupted attention, she felt her face sting when it slapped the bitterly cold surface of the lake. A swift trail of filthy, freezing water snaked into her nostrils and could just only see the satisfied, shining fish flail and leap about into the distance upstream. Her face wrinkled and twisted into one of despair and uncountable indignation. Just as she was about to kick at a wave that offended her sensibility, she heard shuffling grass manipulated in her direction and saw a crouching, sandy-orange primate pokémon frantically raking the ground with its nails, bouncing on its knuckles and exclaiming _"Ook ook!" _acquire her attention.

"Hnn. That racket got your fur in a bunch, Chimchar?" The girl half-teased. The Chimchar snorted and shuddered in disapproval. The girl noticed its flame was crackling and rising at an unusual fervor; grass blades behind it were browning swiftly "I see. It's got your fire in a bunch too. Right. Let's check it out." The Chimchar snorted again, this time in assent, and jerked around in the opposite direction to lead the way by means of natural intuition.

The girl tenderly crept up onto the shore to don her relatively dry, maroon overcoat and hastily slipped it over her exposed pale chest that was beginning to break out in goosebumps at the rolling beads of frosty water on her skin. She grimaced at how her navy hair, chilled and soaked soggy by the lakefront, managed to mat uncomfortably against the flat of her back and shoulder blades before an urgent _"Ook!"_ echoed in the distance and she assured herself with another "Right." She was now quickly urging her way through man-high grass that she had grown accustomed to navigating through from exposure as a child, following the occasional distant howl of her Chimchar. She noticed there wasn't even the hint of a pokémon besides her own that was leaping and clawing through the tall damp field. "What the heck is going on?"

--------**Part Three coming soon--------**


	3. The new and the old

_This is war. This is our zero hour. Where is the one that will bring the end to the quarreling of two?_

_

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_**Pokemon Sinnoh Chronicles: Chapter 3**

**The New and the Old  
**

Professor Rowan had always had a natural affinity for life's kinetic machine of effort, progress, and equivalent exchange. It was his own lifelong philosophy that hard work begot personal growth, and with that growth would come compensation for the sweat and blood shed from a man's brow.

He was considered an infinitely distinguished and prolific individual, and the junior to no colleague whatsoever in his field of work; that was why his personal staff of laboratory whitecoats was composed of nothing less than the most prodigal scientific minds the region of Sinnoh and beyond had to offer. Professor Rowan also had no qualm with showing the door to an aspiring hopeful who had trekked all the way from Kanto if his intuition didn't give him the impression of the poor soul being up to snuff.

At his base laboratory in Sandgem Town, he headed a small organization of scientists and field workers who who all collaborated towards understanding not only pokémon evolution, but communally advancing Sinnoh through the medium of understanding their powerful sentient companions; so far, that ideal had remained an ideal alone. Still, with every day that passed, he could feel that kinetic machine of effort clicking into gear and coming to life; recognition couldn't be far away.

"Professor Rowan!" a rasping voice called, characteristically worn from sleepless nights spent analyzing scientific consistencies in the laboratory; it belonged Reginald 'Reggie' Wells, one of Rowan's most promising prospects under his wing. Reggie called again, "Professor...Professor Rowan! We've detected something absolutely huge on the tectometer! You need to see this!"

Professor Rowan, not easily shaken even in the most critical corners, felt his brow involuntarily furrow at mention of the tectometer, an invention his team had devised for reading violent seismic activity underground. The tectometer operated its display by showing the most volatile and imminently earthquake-prone areas in a color coded tier system; shades blue for zero motion, green for some infinitesimal activity, yellow for a tremor, orange for considerable quakes, and red was shown proactively for dangerous conditions that could warrant an evacuation.

At times the tectometer in fact did serve as a proactive measure for Sandgem to avert casualties in the form of earthquakes, or perhaps pick up a migrating clan of ground or rock-type pokémon moving beneath the community en masse.

Its readings had once been the precursor to a natural cataclysm that had absolutely rattled the entire pokémon world almost two years prior.

The tectometer hadn't gone off for anything notable ever since then, and for his most astute understudy to be that disturbed, it had to be nothing short of colossal.

Professor Rowan nodded assent and hoisted himself out of his chair to make his way over to the tectometer's wide-screen display on the eastern wall in order to survey its readings; what he saw violently confirmed his grim premonition. The underground abrasion began in Sandgem Town and intensified into red zones until it reached the western coasts of Sinnoh, and particularly a natural enclosure on the perimeter of Twinleaf Town.

All of Verity Lakefront was a Red Zone.

Rowan gritted his teeth and palmed his mustache, as he was wont to do just before issuing either critical orders or an explosive reprimanding; this time, it turned out to be both.

Rowan boomed, "Well, what are you layabouts gaping at ME for? Am I a RED ZONE? Contact the officials and warn Twinleaf immediately!"

The whitecoats surrounding him flinched at the roaring echo of his voice against the osculation of the laboratory walls .

"NOW!" Rowan spread his arms out and mightily clapped once.

The laboratory burst into an agitated beehive of activity as scientists and field workers rushed for the doors and their stations at once to get to work and escape Rowan's wrath, more than a few acquiring concussions from slamming into once another along the way.

All but one whitecoat cleared the tectometer's screen viewing area; it was Reggie, who had a white-knuckled grip on the backrest of one of the station chairs and was breathing irregularly. He was quite visibly upset.

Rowan elected not to put a hand on the young man's shoulder, and instead cupped them behind his back and closed his eyes before saying, "She will be safe, Reginald."

Reggie whipped around to face Rowan with eyes just beginning to redden with the primary stages of being bloodshot. He tried to suppress his desire to yell, and instead let loose a venomous counter, "H-how can you be so damn certain, I mean, how can you be so certain that she'll not be harmed? For goodness' sake, Professor, she's only eleven and you deployed her to the field? I knew I shouldn't have allowed her to even consider becoming involved in this line of work at all!"

"She will be safe, Reginald." Rowan's normal voice, masculine as steel, was now surprisingly softened. He continued, "Your daughter has THE most potential and prowess out of any prospects I've ever surveyed since I found you yourself. If my premonitions are correct, which they always are, and she comes from the kind of stock that can impress even me, I know she will be alright."

Reggie's face flushed. A compliment from the professor was as rare as a lunar eclipse. He had been even younger when he had first been sent to do field surveys, and he had had nowhere near the aspiration and talent back then that his daughter possessed.

Reggie deflated and curled his hands into weak fists, tensing and releasing them repeatedly. "Y-you're right. You're right."

Rowan simply nodded in approval, but was alerted by the 'kachunk' of the laboratory doors slamming shut and quickening, heavy footsteps in his direction. The footsteps were clearly booted and unlike the 'tip tap' of loafers that his designated staff usually wore. Rowan looked up without turning around and gruffly asked, "Who goes there? We are in the midst of an emergency."

The footstep holder replied, "If it is in the midst of trouble that you are, then consider yourself also in the midst of luck, for I am in the midst of information! Yes." The voice that responded was relatively deep, but nearly boylike in its electricity. Rowan deduced that it came from an excitable middle-aged man, and from the dialect, not from a region anywhere near Sinnoh.

Rowan turned around to greet this foreign stranger, and his vision was obstructed at blinding speed by a wallet hanging open to reveal a badge of some sort engraved with a golden pokéball insignia. Rowan held his agitation in his throat; people of the law were people even he had a mutual respect for.

Rowan coughed and raised a hand to his face to signal that he understood that he was dealing with an authority figure, but the stranger's arm remained outstretched and thus so did the badge remain hanging in front of Rowan's face.

There was an awkward silence.

Nothing could be heard but the 'tick-tacking' of keyboards in the laboratory's foreground and occasional muffled telephone calls being made.

Rowan cleared his throat and mustered up the question, "Erm, can I help you, sir?"

The stranger did not speak or move his arm. Rowan was growing to loathe many things about the golden badge thrust into his vision. He finally lost his composure and grumbled, "Who ARE you?"

The stranger's eyes lit up like fireworks and he pocketed his badge at light speed. "Aha! I thought the question would never leave your lips! Your fears can now be considered cozily tucked away in my bed, for I, the information giver, am here to inform YOU, the information giver-ee! Aha!"

Professor Rowan's expression could not have been any more unamused.

The peculiarly-accented man's brow furrowed, and his dialect seemed to sharpen dramatically at the sight of Rowan's famous, crushing glare. "Ahem. I am a representative of the International Police, and the information I traveled here to disclose to you is at your liberty to receive or decline, as our operations will continue with or without your preferable assistance."

Rowan lowered his eyes and echoed in a much lower tone, "Assistance? Of what use could an elderly fellow like me have to the IP's?"

The IP shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off of Rowan's person. "Your reputation for modesty precedes you...Major General Rowan of the Great Regional War."

Reggie's glasses damn near popped off of his face at the sound of that. He mouthed the words to himself as if they had been inscribed in illegible text. "M-major..general..war?"

Rowan gestured at Reggie to sit down, but he remained standing taut, with his head down into his hand and index finger causing his glasses to dig into the bridge of his nose. "No, professor. First my daughter's safety is jeopardized by a goddamn red zone out of nowhere, and now you're a GENERAL? I may be your underling, but I'm just a man. I think I'm entitled to answers."

Rowan sighed gruffly. "Officer, may my assistant here be obliged to be brought up to speed on what's going on? His daughter might be in peril from whatever brings you here."

A tense silence permeated the stale air until the IP spoke again, "Very well. Sir 'Rowan's assistant', do you pledge to keep all information disclosed at this point in time under strict confidentiality?"

Reggie looked up and nodded furiously.

The IP smiled. "Good. Now then, it's about time that we stopped stalling and begin sharing. I am Agent Looker, deployed on behalf of the International Police, and I believe that some criminal activity we've been tapping that endangers this region and the next may be chain-linked to this shaky conundrum of yours".

* * *

The young, navy-haired girl sprinted spiritedly through the high brush, taking care not too take overly zealous steps lest she fall on her face.

"_Ook!"_ her Chimchar squealed and came to an immediate halt in front of her right calf, and she fell on her face.

"Nngh, dammit Chimchar." The girl spoke into the frozen soil. "I know you can only go '_ook'_, but we seriously need to develop your communicative skills."

"_Ookieee._" the Chimchar sighed and solemnly lowered its head. The girl eyed its rear exhaust flame and saw it simmer down into weak sparks, most likely out of disappointment in itself. This Chimchar was a tragically proud and persistent worker, and killed itself to serve; even the slightest critique made it feel inadequate, and the girl had noticed this quite some time ago. She dislodged her face from the crater of soil her head had made and gave her pokémon a hearty grin.

Luckily, her experience with the perfectionist pokémon enlightened her on how to cheer it up. "Chimchaaar," she said sweetly. "You _know_ how much I adore you. Just be sure to warn me next time you want to stop running, 'kay?" The Chimchar muttered an_ ook_ in acquiescence and lethargically turned around. The girl was far from satisfied. She silently crawled up behind the slumping Chimchar like a prowling cat stalking a grounded baby bird, and then firecely pounced on it so that it landed face-forward into the dirt before tickling it relentlessly.

No matter how many _ook_'s it cried in resistance, it only made her tickling harder. "Haha! Who's my favorite guy, huh?" she teased through chuckling.

"_OOK!" _The Chimchar was helpless to fight its own sputtering laughter.

"What was that? Was that Chimchar-talk for _'me'_?" Her nails didn't ease up a bit on toying with the lightest patches of Chimchar's fur.

"_CHI CHI OOKIE!"_Chimchar pounded the dirt wildly with its fists and uncontrollably ignited its rear exhaust flame to full blast.

"OH FU-I mean, ahaha, it's good to see you smiling, Chimchar." the girl said through tightly clenched teeth and winced while clutching her steaming midriff. "Now, the disturbance. I believe we had a job to do."

The girl made some horizontal twirls with her finger, and the Chimchar saluted her with a cry of obedience before doing a 180 turn and continuing to lead the way with its flame burning more brightly than it had all afternoon.

The intrepid pair continued on their race towards the source of the noise, and after jogging roughly half a mile to the east, they had managed to zero in on the noise in an especially shaded perimeter of closely-packed mighty greatwood trees. There was a winding, almost surreptitious trail of fallen branches quartering off the interior of the trees; a wooded enclosure of this variety didn't just pop up out of nowhere, only biannually.

From the fallen branches aligned into an obvious warning track and the trees juxtaposed to one another, it was quite obviously a natural barrier serving as a nest for a pokémon colony in the midst of mating season; ANY moron could deduce that, the girl thought to herself.

"_Ook! Chi chi ook!_" her Chimchar cried from a high vantage point on an adjacent tree, where it had been serving her as a lookout. She nodded in response and got to work scaling the greatwood tree; her Chimchar scampered down halfway and hoisted her up to the highest supporting limb, where she would be able to see what had snatched its attention so powerfully.

The Chimchar used its sharp nails to erase some obstructive ligaments of the upper-tree from its trainer's sight; she thanked it with a detached stroke of the tuft of fur on its head, and focused on what could be seen below.

The shock of the sight nearly made her fall to an early death from the tree.

* * *

Lucas felt like he could vomit up every lunch he had consumed in his life and the past life; the scenery of the lakefront was now a horrifying, abstract, racing jade blur that was only occasionally broken up by a prolonged streak of brown and tan. Lucas decided right then and there that if he lived to see through that ordeal, he would make a conscious effort to never be flipped upside down again.

He would have used his arms to possibly slow his momentum if they hadn't been inexplicably tied behind his back with what seemed like the strongest vine known to man; it HAD to be, considering how much punishment he and it had taken over the span of the past hour. The vine was definitely holding up better than he was.

Just as he felt he was about to stop swinging and be able to breathe, another Bidoof joined the circle and pushed him once more. He, Lucas, was literally being used as a human piñata in some sadistic fiesta for vengeful beaver pokémon, and it felt like only a matter of time before his sweet guts came erupting out of his midsection and the Bidoofs would rush in like children to candy to devour it all.

Not that his partner in crime was off any better; if anything, Barry was faring far worse. A few meters away, he too was being restrained by vine, and the Bidoof were taking turns practicing their Tackle attack on his crotch. Lucas couldn't stand to hear the exclamations of agony any longer, and figured he just had to say something. Perhaps some words of comfort or determination in their time of peril.

"BARRY YOU DUMB BASTARD!" Lucas screamed. That didn't work in the way Lucas envisioned, but he'd be damned if it didn't make himself feel better.

Barry retorted, "HEY, I NEVER ASKED YOU TO LISTEN ME-_AUGH_!" He was cut short by another Bidoof ramming headfirst into his unmentionables, which were quickly growing numb from the repetitive impact. The Bidoof were making a game out of it now by spinning the next tackler in a circle before it charged. Barry continued, "IF ANYTHING, THIS IS _YOUR _FAULT. WHY'DJA HAVE TO GIVE IT A NOOGIE, HUH? THAT'S JUST-_ CHRIST __**OUCH**__! HEY,__ THAT ONE CHEATED_!"

"Ugh." Lucas winced at that last hit Barry took. It was beginning to seem as if the Bidoof's corporal punishment could last an eternity before Lucas detected something alarming in his peripheral vision. The Bidoof had somehow assembled a small bonfire from a stock of logs, and above it was a rotating wooden spic being supported by two Y-shaped twigs driven into the ground on either side.

A familiar Bidoof with a considerable amount of welts and lumps on its head stood up next to the contraption and withdrew something from the fire, revealing it to be some sort of stake. _Wait, _Lucas thought. _Stake? Fire? Stakes skewer things. Fire COOKS things. They couldn't possibly mean to...!_ The lumpy-headed Bidoof threw some nuts into the crackling flame for good measure, and then turned to face Lucas with an unreadable stare and merely chirped "**Derp**". It then began to snap its teeth together at a rapid pace and then rubbed its belly.

Lucas' eyes expanded to fish-like proportions and his throat got tight.

"AAAAH!" He flailed manically in his vine bondage like a bagworm on ecstasy, and just as a troop Bidoof closed in on him to secure him in place properly for the incoming hot stake, a pokémon cry pierced the air and stopped all in its place.

"_Ook ook chi!" _

"Chimchar, give them a taste of your _Ember_! Scatter plot!" A feminine voice commandeered the first, and before a single muscle moved on the earth below, a fountain of crimson orbs erupted from the trees above and began pelting the ground at the pace of a rain shower, leaving black abscesses and miniature craters that crackled with molten earth in their wake.

Needless to say, the Bidoof didn't fare much better than the ground while at the mercy of the burning assault; when one felt a white-hot orb fizzle out on its back, it yowled from the sudden scathing heat and scrambled over its brethren to take cover in the cool, merciful lake. From what Lucas could see of Barry, he seemed to have miraculously regained the feeling in his legs as he was practically performing a manic tap-dance to avoid being scorched by the falling hellfire.

By the time the last Bidoof had scampered into lake shore, a rolling pillar of steam had arisen from the lake at the collective heat of their charred fur.

Barry, now no longer hopping from one foot to another for his life, edged around to face Lucas after surveying the scorched earth about them and slowly stated, "Lucas, I think we were just saved by the devil."

As soon as those words left his lips, they were near-immediately answered by a girl's voice that rang through the powerfully echoing space of the deserted lakefront, "Sorry about the close call. It was too much fun watching you two sweat!"

Barry piped up in a high whisper, "Holy hell Lucas, Satan is a chick!"

* * *

Professor Rowan and Reggie had been escorted out of the laboratory and into a streamlined, pearl white cruiser reserved for government operatives for quick rendezvous meetings and high-speed pursuit. The vehicle's piercing and sleek presence jarred with the down-home, green ambiance of Twinleaf countryside; the jet black interior and silver, leather seating provided even deeper contrast to the outside.

Rowan and Reggie had been secured in the backseat by a heavy-handed chauffeur who had even taken the liberty of fastening their seat belts for them, and after repeating the same courtesy for Looker in the passenger's seat, he hustled over to the driver's side and kicked the car into a cruising, nonchalant pace about the dirt road that snaked through town.

With the press of a button amongst the ones that would operate his window, Looker's seat elevated, and with a remarkable mechanical chorus of 'whirrs' and clicks, his seat slowly spun to face the professor and his labhand in the rear of the car.

Agent Looker, seated rather comfortably waved an outstretched palm in a circle about him and punctuated it with the statement, "Welcome to my humble home, friends."

Rowan cleared his throat and muttered, "Quite the...fine automobile you have here, officer."

Looker raised a hand as if to stop him and interjected, "Please, call me Looker. 'Officer' makes me feel like some sort of pig. That's only when my wife makes her steamed dumplings, you see."

Reggie nodded nervously while Rowan closed his eyes and huffed through his nose. Looker coughed and let out a nervous chuckle before going on, "My apologies. It isn't exactly in my protocol, but I like to soften dire briefings like this with some light-hearted jabbing. Makes the whole thing seem like less of a doomsday affair. However, I see you two are men of the razor point and nothing less. Very well then, I won't pull punches in what you are about to learn."

Looker took a deep breath and began to speak once more.

"We are trailing a mastermind specializing in biological and zoological warfare. He was known to have been apart of the international regional council from the staggeringly young age of nineteen under the name of Samson Warren, and was known for his razor intellect, eloquence, and most of all, startlingly cold harshness. All of his contacts seemed to drop off the radar when he was expelled from the council for an underhanded political agenda, along with corruption of laws, and began endeavoring in ill exploits such as grand theft and exploitation of pokémon." Agent Looker cleared his throat and put a hand to his chin, appearing to contemplate disclosing further information.

"Seems like your stereotypical comic villain that good ol' Pokéman from the Sunday strip or some other cape would put down on a weekly basis, yes? Make no mistake, this character is far from being understood and further from apprehension. He has an entire generation of impressionable youths he has brainwashed with his twisted tongue into following him to the world's end and back. We also have reason to believe that the man has a motive that could spell a disaster even greater than the Planetwide D-Day we faced two years ago, and it could be linked to the disappearance of the three legendary lake pokémon of this region quite some time ago. What? Don't look so bewildered, Professor Rowan. You, a master of pokémon evolution, should just as well as someone in my level of daily intrigue that mirages are always not bound to delusion or untruth."

Rowan shook his head as if to dispel the shock at the influx of disillusioning information. A criminal mind that could rock the planet even greater than the environmental cataclysm of yesteryear? As if exploitation of pokémon wasn't enough of a malefaction. Someone at the head of a criminal syndicate who could be inducted into the international regional council at nineteen was a frightening prospect indeed, and it became all the more real when it all came knocking on his door, his laboratory, his home.

Looker snapped him out of his introversion and continued speaking. "We've been tracking his movements with agents on the inside and have managed to pin him down to this circumference of Sinnoh. It also may very well be that he's pinned US down to this region, and is preparing to deliver his coup de grâce to the stability of this nation as we know it. His criminal alias is Cyrus, and we're going to need the best in the business to take him out before his debauchery reaches the general public and becomes terrorism."

Rowan's face grew stern and intensified into of sheer, solemn acceptance. He had relocated to Twinleaf after his honorable discharge from the armed forces long ago in the hopes that its peaceful ambiance could fool him into believing that peace was finally in permanence; now he saw that he had only blindfolded himself to a world that was more chaotic than ever.

The white cruiser's jarring contrast with the environment now seemed like less of an oppression and more of a man-made prophet signifying his own past coming to challenge his retirement.

Rowan 'harrumphed' and then grinned for the first time in a day before extending an open hand towards Agent Looker, who seemed to have been perusing his every movement beforehand. "Agent, you could not have picked a worse time to scout operatives. This goes against everything I vowed to hold fast to in the serenity of my retirement. However, I suppose critical times wait for no man, be he fast or idle. Consider me apart of your ranks."

Looker's face seemed to shine at those decisive words, and he gripped his senior's outstretched hand and shook it once, firmly. "It's my pleasure and that of the International Police to have you aboard, Major General."

Reggie, who had grown impatient at seeming invisible, elected to pipe up "Professor Rowan! I mean, er, Major..General Rowan, sir. What should I do?"

Without even facing Reggie or breaking his tight grin, Looker responded with the question, "What is your name, assistant of the general?"

Reggie pushed up his glasses and mustered as much officialism into his voice as he could, "Reginald Wells. My name is Reginald Wells."

Agent Looker kept his eyes firmly closed and his smile tightly wound and said, "Very well then. Consider yourself under arrest, Reginald Wells! You know too much!"

Reggie exploded with an incredibly loud "WHA?!" and leaped vertically out of his seat, busting his head on the low roof of the cruiser and swiftly rendering himself unconscious.

Looker bit his lip at the impact and remarked, "Well, that's a first. Usually we have to tranquilize them ourselves before they're detained. Oh well. Less trouble. Now, Major General, we have a date with disaster on our hands. I assume you'll want to return to your lab to prepare...and get your assistant some ice?"

Rowan nodded quietly and peered out the window to see that they had already made a full loop about the town and were parked adjacent to his laboratory already. "Yes, I think I will."

He got out of the car and hoisted his slumbering assistant onto his shoulder with as much ease as he would a potato sack, and before heading off, inconspicuously motioned with his head for the car to clear the area of his laboratory and head towards the high grass plains to the west.

The inside of the laboratory had been deserted; he would be correct in assuming that his employees had been successful in notifying their families and had headed to be with them in safety. Now it was his job to make sure of that safety being a reality instead of a mere comforting thought. After laying Reggie down on a pull-out bed in the back reserved for overnight projects, he moved to the motherboard control panel of the laboratory stationed in the east corner. The control panel regulated everything from the laboratory's power to communicating with his field-hands via wireless transmission; it also had an ulterior purpose that only he had ever known about.

After inputting a swift code on the massive keyboard, a hidden button flipped up and revealed itself on the upper-rightmost corner. Rowan pressed and held it, allowing its sensory function to read his fingerprint, and then he withdrew his hand as the entire motherboard flipped over backwards on itself and converted into large, open velvet case emitting a cold, crisp mist that had been held within for preservation purposes.

Six pokéballs juxtaposed to one another became clear as day when the mist settled, their scarlet and ivory as luminous as Rowan had remembered them the day he had been granted them. Rowan took one of them and held strongly it in his sight, getting a feel for it's spherical grip and the sensation of control and partnership that had eroded with time in his long abstinence from battle. After mere seconds with every one of the six pokéballs, he already recalled which partner lye sleeping in each one.

He donned a familiar holster that was also held in the compartment upon his waist, and sheathed every pokéball in its respective casing before remarking wistfully, "Seems like it's time for a little family reunion."

* * *

Sifting leaves in the high forest beds grabbed Lucas and Barry's attention. A small, rolling ball of fiery hair burst from the matrix of branches above and unfurled itself in mid-air before landing on top of Lucas' suspended vine bondage; it was quite the unimposing visage of a textbook Chimchar, though if it was the source of an Ember attack that could send a colony of pokémon fleeing to lick their burns, Lucas and Barry understood it was not to be trifled with.

"_Ook chi!_" the Chimchar cried to psyche itself up before snapping its primate fangs into the vine suspending Lucas from a greatwood tree and letting him land headfirst into the dirt with a _thud_; before Lucas had even hit the ground, however, Chimchar had tactfully bounded over to Barry.

"_Ook cha!_" the Chimchar readied the retractable claws on its right hand and and practically diced the vines binding Barry's arms with one slash, along with the back of his pants.

"Heyyyy, watch the nails, Satan's little helper!" Barry yelped in surprise.

The Chimchar's previously eager face now fell into a stony expression of absolute dejection, and it slowly sauntered off to the base of a nearby gnarled greatwood. It curled up into one of the holes in the trunk and let out a "_Chaaa..."_ sigh as if contemplating whether it should extinguish its flame once and for all.

Five seconds didn't go by before a girl came swiftly sliding down the tree branches and groaned, "Jeez, not again. You hurt his feelings, kid!"

"Wha-what, huh, who?" Barry pointed to Lucas and then himself and then a random tree in confusion. The girl tilted her head at him to size him up and then sighed before explaining, "My Chimchar. You made him feel inadequate."

Barry narrowed his eyes suspiciously, sifted them from left to right, and then deliberately walked up to the taller girl and leaned in until his nose was nearly brushing her chin, keeping a conspicuous scowl on his face.

"Um, can I help you?" the girl scrunched up her nose as the younger boy kept an uncomfortable closeness to her face, quite obviously annoyed.

"That was YOUR Chimchar that nearly turned us into smoked salmon down here?" Barry huffed and turned his back to her and continued, "That's some handle you have on your pokémon, lady."

The girl's face flushed scarlet as she spat, "That's some handle you have on your BLADDER, little boy."

Barry's face flared into a a wide expression of intense confusion and irritation at that statement, and fell blank and flat as he lowered his vision to his pants.

He had wet himself.

He had unquestionably pissed his pants when the Bidoof started having a football practice into his crotch. And now he had been called out. By a girl. An older girl. A girl who had seen him wet his pants. He had wet his pants...in front of a girl.

"Goddammit!" He flipped his upper-body partly around to face the girl, determined not to expose the wet seat of his pants any further, and violently inquired, "What the heck brings you 'round these parts anyway, granny glasses? You just like to hang in the trees and spy on the wildlife?"

The girl flushed red and instinctively raised a hand to adjust the silver-rimmed spectacles hanging off the bridge of her nose. "Don't they teach you little kids gratitude these days? Your little romp with those Bidoof was so loud I wouldn't be surprised if they heard it all the way in Snowpoint City. And my _name_ is Dawn Wells, and you should address me as that and nothing else!"

Lucas had been silent for the entire venomous exchange between his long time friend and this older girl, their savior. He didn't have much experience in dealing with the opposite sex under his belt, especially none of the kind such as Dawn, which he was rapidly beginning to dissect with his zealous eyes. Dawn. That was a name that to him meant precious light to chase away the blackness of dire night, just as she had done not too long ago in regards to their situation.

Sharp azure eyes glinted from behind intelligent-looking eyeglasses, giving Lucas the impression of her having an authoritative aura with a distinct...bubbliness hidden within? He wanted to simply say, _"I __like your glasses, Dawn.", _but some mental inhibitor caught the words in his mouth like small fish on a baited hook, and he could only mouth the words inaudibly, giving him the appearance of a beached Magikarp gasping for breath. He was too preoccupied, from his prone position, with the near-underview of her violet skirt that teased his curiosity like a fat hen before a fox. He had to make a move.

Barry, not noticing his friend's quiet dilemma, snorted haughtily. "_Dawn_? What kind of stripper name is that? I guess you've got the outfit to match, though, what with the miniskirt and all. I don't know what's up with the hat, though. You know socks go on your feet, right?"

Dawn bit her lip ferociously, so ferociously as if she were about to eat her own face, and put one hand on her knit white cap's pokéball insignia and breathed harshly, "Why you little-I just saved your snotty life! It's mating season for the Bidoof here, and they were ready to rip you apart! What are you _doing_ in this area anyway?"

Barry crossed his arms, turned his nose to the sky and proclaimed, "Mating season, you say? I don't even know what mating is, but whatever it does to 'em, they're no match for my partner in crime LUCAS here. Isn't that right, Lucas?"

Lucas, who had been inching centimeters closer to Dawn's leg as slowly as a crippled caterpillar, backtracked in a panic as swiftly as a snake that had mistaken its tail for its head when she and Barry's attention had unexpectedly shifted from each other and onto him. He turned as white as bone and went, "Uh, what? Yes! Yes! I am Lucas!" Sweat was beginning to build up on the back of his neck. Curse it all, why did his friend have to sap all of his confidence in the face of this girl? This...angel.

Barry, momentarily confused at his friend's cryptic outburst, regained his composure and turned back to Dawn and said triumphantly, "Yup! He's Lucas alright. Lucas: Pokémon Ass-kicking extraordinaire. You got a poké-problem? He's got the poké-smackdown. This one Bidoof was near finished before it cheated and called for backup."

Dawn's eyes snapped wider than Barry and Lucas had ever seen eyes snap ever. She looked down to a mortified Lucas intently and asked painfully carefully, almost as if asking herself, "You-you came out into restricted pokémon mating territory in broad daylight and thrashed a Bidoof to kingdom come with your bare hands?"

Before Lucas could utter a word in defense, Barry piped up, "You bet your drafty bottom he did! My buddy Lucas here is an elite, top-notch pokémon thrasher. Mating season? Hah! No pokémon mates until he says so, with his fists. Isn't that right, bro?"

Barry's elbow was now on Lucas' head as he sat staring at the coarse amber fur ala Bidoof ass on his shoes. Out of a flash on impulse, Lucas grabbed Barry by a gold lock of hair and pulled him down until his friend's ear reached his own mouth and hissed more loudly than he intended, "_Barry, I'm going to thrash YOU if you don't shut up-_"

Barry cut him off and backed off at the same time, saying ""Whoa partner! Save that for the pokémon! You know, the things you like to beat up! For fun! Ahaha!"

Dawn, now recovering from her initial unpleasant surprise, turned her back to the both of them and said with a cold tone, "I've heard enough. Go get minced by all the pokémon of the forest for all I care. Hmph." She snapped her fingers to alert her Chimchar at the base of the great gnarled tree, who had apparently overheard the exchange, as its tail flame was burning hotly in a way that it did to signify it was genuinely miffed. Dawn, removing her glasses to wipe the fog from them with a section of her top, stepped past her pokémon with no more than an empty "Chimchar. Come."

The Chimchar cried assent and then quickly spun around to face Lucas, attracting his attention with a pebble hurled at his chest. Looking up, Lucas saw the Chimchar point two fingers at its own eyes before turning that hand to point at him with one index, as if to say "_I'm watching you, punk._"

Lucas flinched at the gesture and weakly stretched out an arm towards the fleeting image of Dawn, almost beckoning her to wait there, if only she could hear him out. That hope was extinguished as Barry yelled after her, "Yeah that's right! Walk away! Don't trip over your go-go boots, ya hooker!"

Dawn's "ugh" could be heard in the distance as she promptly took off sprinting away into the foliage.

Barry smiled a toothy, wolfish smile for himself and looked down at a frozen Lucas to say, "Damn I'm good! Ah well, we sure showed her, didn't we?"

Nothing permeated the silence of the still forest for ten seconds.

The back of Lucas' left hand met Barry's teeth.

_**SLAP!**_

Barry held his smarting mouth tightly. "Ah! A bitch slap? What'cha do that for?"

"Shut up, Barry."

* * *

From the height of a precipice above the lake-kissed wood, a tall humanoid figure raised its hand to the clouds and twirled a finger, lightly amused in watching the airy silver space above follow his hand's movements without question. If he could have shrieked to expel some of the absolute power coursing through his very veins, he would have, had he not forsaken the ardor of human emotion to motivate him into acting upon impulse.

So this was the product of true omnipotence. He could see how such a prospect of having everything the eye beholds as malleable as putty could be frightening to one who clung to their apprehension and inhibitions; the score of quaking souls behind him was proof enough of that. The youths needed not to physically tremble for him to sense their fear.

He could not blame them, after all; many of them had only submitted to his cause from giving up on their worlds in general out of sorrow or laziness. Such things as those were not his motivation for change, and thus they could never understand; pawns fated to fall before the will of the king. Such was life as he knew it, and if he was successful, life as all would know it soon enough.

He got down on one knee and pressed a hand to the rocky face of the cliff's edge, caressing the grooves as if it were a delicate pet; it very well was, in his hands. He then raised a fist to the heavens, relishing the rise of wind to that motion, and brought it slamming back down into the stone edge of the natural platform he stood upon. The plateau quaked hectically with the shockwave of his hand's impact and bucked some of the scrambling peons he had brought along with him as witnesses off of the sides and to an early death, befitting of them in his eyes.

The shockwave traveled down the face of the cliff, cracking stone and rending earth in every which way in its wake until it reached the damp soil below.

The figure spoke in an ocean-deep, monotone voice, "I, Cyrus, commander of the vassals of space and time, do claim this place as my own."

All of the lakefront before him began to tremble like a geyser on the cusp of birthing water, and with one more press of his palm, it happened.

Verity Lakefront was consumed in a grand, ground-ripping earthquake.

**---------------Part 4 hopefully coming sooner than Part 3 did (=/)-----------------------**


	4. The bright and the dark

As slowly, as surely, and as deadly as a waxing wildfire, absolute chaos descended upon the lakefront like a wrathful downpour. Proud greatwood trees were instantly ripped in twain as if a giant had decimated them with a massive, invisible blunt edge.

Fissures developed in the loamy soil like blood-engorged veins, and then split apart as easily and seamlessly as prematurely heated pastries of the earth, greedily consuming everything that lye in the path of their expansion; helpless nature and fleeing pokémon alike.

While the earthquake had not instantaneously rocked the entire area into natural rubble, its shockwave methodically grew out in a slowly widening radius akin to the rings evoked by a pebble hitting a flat face of water; like a sluggish underground juggernaut, it laid waste to and submerged any and everything that was kissed by its killing touch.

Cyrus was undoubtedly pleased, and yet his composure had taken a blow at the release of his seismic force. Down on his hands and knees and out of breath, he had not expected his newfound abilities to have such an unprecedented effect and, more importantly, such an unreal recoil to his system; he would have to grow accustomed to that pain in time, as for now, this act only served as an exhibition of what might now rest in the palms of his hands, and a landmark to be remembered in years to come of his first baby steps into the throne of his new world's design.

If the International Regional Council had taught him anything in his years of service, it was that the race he formerly aligned himself with called "humans" were beyond redemption. They could not fight for themselves, and so they fought amongst themselves. They could not feed themselves, and so they took food out of the mouths of one another. They could not fend for themselves, and so they used the facade of pokémon being their so-called companions to, in actuality, do their bidding; his job had been to put these masochistic mice called civilians in their little exercise wheels of law and order until they ran themselves to death and were no longer a detriment to society, and it made him ill to his stomach.

He was not without compassion, however, in his mind. If the human race was so invariably self-destructive, it at least deserved the right of a last will before its judgment; what better testament to the end of so many years of violence than an end so gruesome that all who called Earth home would have their inherent bloodlust finally sated?

An earthquake of this magnitude would certainly bring them into the first stages of their fear; fear was the ultimate trigger for impulse, and the impulse that lye within every heart was one of darkness. First the protests would begin. Then the riots, the civil outbreaks, the wars; he could see it all now, just in the outer reaches of the magenta horizon before him. Now, with the newfound, otherworldly reach his hands had been granted, his fingers could graze that goal even more sensuously than before. As if to punctuate that thought, he braced his fist in the direction of the wind blowing towards the setting sun, and concentrated that wind into a forceful gale that swallowed leaves of fallen trees in its tunnel and blew their scattered husks into the sky. Yes, he could definitely feel that new dawn beyond the setting sun before him.

Noticing that the quaking shockwave was finally nearing the vast aqua and golden-tinted mass in the distance known as the Verity Lake, Cyrus decided that it was time to move into the second stage of the day's plans, and with that, he would require assistance. He reached into one of the many zipped compartments on the breast of his peculiar white jumpsuit that doubled as a full-body holster, and withdrew a contrastingly simple walkie-talkie device. With the press of a white button on the device's face, it began to emit a high-pitched whine that signified it was in 'talk' mode and his voice would be relayed onto wherever its frequency was stationed.

Cyrus spoke slowly into the sound receptacle, "Captain to commanders. Captain to commanders. If you take some time to survey the land about you, you shall see that phase one of our plan has come into fruition. Begin operation 'bird talk' immediately. It is time for these troglodytes of Sinnoh to feel just exactly how cold their winter can be. I will be carrying out my secondhand motivations. Over."

A few seconds of sound delay transpired, and was followed by a chorus of acquiescence from the receiving end of his command, consisting of "Roger that", "Right away", and "We'll knock 'em dead, Captain Cyrus!"

Cyrus nodded solemnly at the response, and then closed his eyes while turning his face to a breeze he directed towards the lakefront treeline with his hand.

Through the tunnel of wind, he sensed them. A trio of life forms making haste at his beck and call on another plateau to the southwest, just as he had expected; there, his three most elite lackeys would be setting up a radio hub to jack the region's frequency with his syndicate's technology and broadcast his rising to every live, electronic streaming medium in Sinnoh. However, as the air brushed over an eastern quadrant of the lakefront, he caught the presence of three more life forms under the treeline that were out of the reach of his widening quake. From the delicate radiance of the three of them, those presences were undoubtedly those of children, and children calmly ignorant of their imminent peril at that.

After some rapid deliberation, he came to a firm realization. Exhibiting his strength was one thing, but the impact would not truly hit home unless he came personally kicking down the doors of all of his designated audience of the world; what better vein of society to jab than that of the children, their offspring and their hope?

He let a spark of heated energy run down his shoulder and fizzle out in the palm of his hand on impulse and excitement, and made a slow about-face to easily pace down the incline of the cliff he had scaled to reach his vantage point above the lakefront; then, without warning, he made a rapid 180 degree turn when the rock face became steep and sprinted back up to the cliff's height at a phenomenal speed.

When he reached the cliff''s edge at the top once more, he did not falter in the slightest, but made an inhumanly vertical leap off into the air and plummeted to the forest floor at a rocket-speed nose dive. Just before hitting the soil, he rolled to meet the earth with one knee and fist, leaving a sizable crater at the velocity of his impact.

Cyrus took his time standing back up, as a crash of that magnitude would have instantly killed a mortal man. Cracking his neck, he closed his eyes and focused to sense the small static blips of life on his mind's extrasensory radar, and confirmed one to be moving in his direction while the other two were idle.

He wasted no time in dashing off to intercept the life form on its path out of the forest, breaking obstructive trees with his fists along the way. Operation 'bird talk' was about to become all the more effective.

* * *

Agent Looker's driver had repositioned the cruiser to be parked alongside the outskirts of Sandgem, on the eastern border of wilderness lined by greatwood trees and a narrow, natural passageway into the nexus of the wood. When Looker eyed Rowan rushing out of the laboratory's screen doors and in their direction through the high grass in the distance, he gave a nod of approval; when the man had given him his word that he was now apart of their ranks, if was as if he had slipped back into uniform with that mere utterance.

Rowan was steady-headed, punctual, and as serious a razor. The old man was a military junkie at heart, and that hadn't changed since the Great War; being enrolled in the International Police for so long, Looker had developed an exceptional judgment of character from the most minor of observations, and he could tell that he had made the right choice in coming to Sandgem of all places to scout Rowan at the last hour as direly-needed help.

However, he was not without his doubts. Men of Rowan's age were prone to a weakness of wistfulness and nostalgia; had they been right in taking advantage of what could possibly be a yearning for the past in order to earn some quick assistance?

He would have to deliberate that later; _all's fair, all's fair, _he thought to himself. Rowan was less than ten yards away, and was signaling him with his arms waved above his head to start the car.

As the rear right door automatically swung open at his approach and Rowan hopped into the interior, Looker eyed the sizable coffee-brown briefcase that Rowan had holstered to his back and unfastened when in his seat.

Looker smirked weakly and quipped, "You have enough precautions to last the winter in that thing?"

Rowan, occupied with positioning the briefcase between his knees, and bluntly replied, "Only the essentials."

Looker raised an eyebrow at that. "Fresh underwear?"

The older man 'hmped' and stated matter-of-factly, "You know it." He punctuated that statement by fastening his seat belt with a deliberately loud 'click'.

A chuckle freed itself from Looker's lips; the first real one he had had all evening. "Hah. Alright, well as long as you've got that in order, I'd say we're ready for business. Sir, if you'd please?"

The burly, police-issued cruiser driver nodded in affirmation at Looker's request and kicked the car into ignition before taking off along the dirt border snaking along the edge of the forest. In the back of the car, Rowan's attention was grabbed by a series of peculiar snaps and pops issuing from the blind spot of the back of Looker's seat, ceasing momentarily and then followed by a prolonged 'gulp' that unmistakably came from Looker's throat, and an "Ack!" that communicated his distaste for whatever had just passed through it.

Rowan, slightly dumbfounded at what Looker could be partaking in, asked curtly, "Pills, Mr. Looker? I thought I was supposed to be the old one."

Still recovering from the after-effect of whatever he had just swallowed, Looker raised an index finger to signify he needed time to respond and then plainly stated, "Body regulating oxygen tablets."

Rowan narrowed his eyes in deep consideration of that term, and promptly gave up with a clueless "What?"

Looker exhaled greatly and, through his own visible shuddering, went on to continue, "Cyrus has juiced himself up with some bad mojo that can only be the influence something inhuman, or at least grants him that sort of odd power. Spirits, supernatural forces, inhuman senses, pokemon? Hell, it could even be divine intervention. All we know is that the bastard can somehow detect heat signatures and use it to preemptively evade pursuit, and that may only be the tip of the iceberg. That's about the gist of the knowledge we have on his strange capabilities, and it led us to develop these..."

A brown coat-sleeved arm extended itself to the back of the car and near Rowan's person, and in its hand it cupped a transparent pharmaceutical canister with a somewhat copious amount of small blue orbs contained in the plastic casing.

Looker went on, "These little products of the lab have been our best friends in nearly apprehending Cyrus time upon time, though he has a knack for pulling clenching and rather forceful escapes. They null the temperature of your body to a nigh undetectable point with a cooling agent not unlike a winter breeze, but manage to leave your immune system unfazed. Body-regulating-oxygen tablets. They're popularly called "bro pills" in the force. You really should, and by 'should' I mean NEED to take some. 2 or 3 should be sufficient."

Rowan eyed the canister suspiciously as if they might be the precursor to an elaborate prank, before Looker broke his train of thought by saying, "Now we do have the bro pills in suppository form if those are too much of a pill to swallow, you know."

The bro pills went down the hatch. To Rowan, it felt like trying to swallow gravel. While they were smooth and ovular at a glance, their texture was abrasive and rock-like. They weren't easy on the taste buds either, so it was no wonder Looker had coughed so much.

"Oh, and the pills do have one more side-effect that first timers should be wary of. You might get a taaad bit of the chills. Body temperature nullification can be a bit...cold."

A brutal sensation of his insides being dragged through an ice box overtook Rowan's senses, and he slumped down in his seat like melted putty, too overcome with the extreme, stupefying feeling to do any more.

Rowan then flipped up the arm rest on his left side and clicked a button that raised a PDA-like apparatus from the dashboard in front of him, and after some fiddling with its settings, a green and black map akin to a GPS display lit up on the screen.

"Ah, we are just about at the checkpoint." Rowan observed. He reached back to retrieve the bro pill canister from Rowan's slightly twitching hand and placed it in the cup holder between himself and the driver. "Now," Looker directed his attention towards the driver. "We're clear on the operation, yes? Radio for the cavalry to drop in as soon as they can, and make sure the remainder of these pills get distributed as efficiently as possible. One hot signal in the troop and our position will be as bare as a baby's behind."

The driver grunted something akin to "roger that", and Looker nodded in affirmation. He then turned around to face the drooling professor in the backseat, obviously still under the influence of the temperature altering substance.

Looker beamed and piped up, "Ah! That's good. You're drooling. That means the chemical has nearly settled into your system completely."

Rowan could only gurgle incomprehensibly and mumble "You damn kids.. and your...new-age field medicine....Back in my day..."

Looker raised an index finger and rapped it against his temple once to signal he understood. Wasting no time, he glanced at the GPS once more before pressing a button inside the arm rest to adjust his seat as he had earlier to face Rowan and Reginald at the rear of the car, though this time, the right-hand side doors of the cruiser flipped up, and his and Rowan's seat were thrusts out into the rushing wind tunnel of the outside, connected only by a metal bracket that had extended from the cruiser's underside.

The part of the dashboard that had been ejected with Looker's seat collapsed into a mass of folding metal and mechanically rearranged itself into a structure resembling handlebars. The distance between Looker and Rowans seats closed, and two slim wheels descended from the both of them.

The right, upper half of the car had been projected off to the side and formed into an improvised motorcycle with the backseat becoming a passenger's compartment.

At Looker's thumbs-up signal, the driver slammed his foot on the brakes and Looker kicked down on the rack securing Rowan and himself to the screeching vehicle, immediately propelling them both into a breakneck, soaring course through the air.

The wheels rumbled like jet turbines and seamlessly drilled into the ground, seemingly unaffected by the uneven path of the lakefront and turning all small obstructions into ground mulch. In the rear seat of the cycle cruiser, Rowan had just barely recovered from the bro pill's chilling effect and was now struggling for breath at the sudden ejection from the car. He yelled over the whipping wind, "Are you trying to give me a heart attack, boy?!"

Looker answered by slamming the breaks and tightly craning the handles to the right to make them drift violently into the underbrush and finally into the jade wood itself. He now had to weave through isolated trees to keep them from meeting an explosive end.

Rowan, suppressing the midday luncheon rising in his throat, elected to simply focused on keeping the sizable briefcase between his legs from flying out of the compartment.

The cycle's hectic trail blazing continued for some time until the trees became too numerous to safely or even conceivably navigate through via automobile. Looker brought the cycle to a smooth halt at the base of a greatwood tree.

Looker killed the cycle's ignition and sighed deeply, perhaps out of the concentration his off-road navigating had taken. "We'll have to remain posted here until we're contacted by International Police backup." he informed Rowan.

Rowan nodded assent and hoisted himself out of the motorbike's back compartment, taking care to step gingerly step over the briefcase he had brought along with him and pull it out along with his person. He raised it above his head to inspect it for any possible given scrape or disfigurement, and then knelt down on his left knee with the bound briefcase perched securely on his right one. Looker noticed Rowan busily rummaging through the pockets of his heavy overcoat, and finally produce a small, jet-black and rectangular apparatus with ridges in the side and a deep red circle imprinted on its face.

With a press of the circle, a serrated, bladed edge emerged from the head of the black device like a flash of silver lightning, and Rowan went to work severing the nylon wire binding the case's locks.

Looker leaned back on the cycle and put a hand to his chin, staring at the ex-general at work as he made calculated slashes to the wires and yet never braised the briefcase itself, as if he were freeing a comrade from a tightly wound trap.

When the wires finally lay aside from the case in a tangled pile, Rowan tactfully applied the tip of the knife to the two goldenrod latches on either side of it and the the entire thing's top face creaked open like a rusted door being swung ajar for the first time in years.

His curiosity now piqued, Looker craned his neck to the side to get a better view of what lye inside, and when he saw it, a knowing smirk overcame his features. Pokéballs. Six of them aligned in separate parallel rows of three, and from the worn looks of them, they had done a great deal of service in the past.

"Old friends, General?" Looker asked with a repressed tinge of boy-like excitement in his voice.

"Only the best, my boy." Rowan replied quietly as he softly tossed up a single pokéball in his hand repeatedly before placing it back the gray lining, which he removed carefully and unfolded before him on the ground, pokéballs still in place.

Rowan's attention diverted from the briefcase; he removed his sky blue sweater vest, matching tie and white collared shirt, revealing, to Looker's observations, a surprisingly solidly built man beneath the officialdom of business casual dress. Rowan's arms were as riddled with tight muscle as they were scars, displaying a certain toughness that had not failed to preserve itself in times of peace following calamity. The old man had kept his conditioning up, however discreetly.

"I figure as long as we have time, I finally have the time to get dressed." Rowan explained matter-of-factly. He picked up the gray lining to his briefcase and held it tightly to his chest with one hand while yanking buckle and clip ended straps from folded-over pockets in the fabric and fastening them over his shoulders as well as around his back. When he finished, Looker could not help but beam and shake his head in amazement.

The case lining hadn't been merely decorative at all, but a tactical vest and pokéball holster in one. Looker sized the other man up, and simply said. "Well, I must say, you clean up well, sir."

Rowan spun his knife a few times through his fingers before retracting the blade and sheathing it in a breast compartment in his vest. "Just call me the cleaner, lad." Rowan said before sitting down in a crossed-legged position, eyes closed.

Time seemed to still in the forest, as the silent minutes seemed to meld together into an ambiguous progression of dragging seconds, perhaps forming an hour, or maybe less. All that Looker knew was that the confirmation transmission from backup should have come through before however long they had been waiting. Something was definitely up, though he couldn't exactly put his finger on it.

_"What on Earth is taking them? Did they stop for lunch?" _Looker's impatience was growing into indignation.

"I'm going to radio those slowpokes and see what's holding them." Looker remarked to a stony Rowan and then reached to retrieve his radio walkie-talkie from where he had placed it on the seat of his motorcycle.

He placed it to his ear, clicked the 'outgoing' transmission button and spoke with urgency, "This is Agent Looker to HQ. Agent Looker to HQ. I arrived at the rendezvous point with the general some time ago. At this rate, we'll lose the target. Did someone slip up and send the rookies down here?"

After speaking and releasing the button, the walkie-talkie was unresponsive before emitting a high-frequency whine along with a crackling static screech that broke even Rowan's introverted concentration. A few more seconds of indiscernible noise, and then the device abruptly powered down with a low 'beep'.

Looker's eyes widened and he angrily pocketed the device, now reduced to a deadweight. Rowan looked over to ask, "I assume that would mean we're on our own?"

Looker groaned and mumbled "Unfortunately." in a very defeated tone.

Rowan nodded in understanding and made a motion to support himself to get up, but froze when his left had reached the ground. He kept his hand half-submerged in the underbrush and mulch of the forest for a bit of time, occasionally moving his fingers from one side to another, and then retracted it at a great speed and with much urgency.

"Looker. Whatever course of action we're going to take, we must make haste. I felt strong vibrations on the forest floor. Remember the red zones? This place is going to be a hell zone if we don't move. Now."

Looker slapped his hands on his knees and rolled his eyes in a gesture that screamed "this is great timing" before turning grab the handlebars of the cycle cruise.

He ended up having to seize them for balance.

The vibrations Rowan had spoke of had developed into writhing, earthly quakes. Rowan was forced down onto one knee and struggled to maintain his footing as well as stability of mind as he rolled over the idea of vibrations that small becoming a tremor so rapidly. It wasn't natural. Nothing about whatever was happening that day seemed natural.

He had no more time to meditate or reason, as the earth beneath him now seemed to be shaking in two places at once, and standing up became quite impossible. Through the chaos, he could see Looker scrambling backwards from a developing fissure in the ground that separated the both of them by an increasing distance.

Roaring earth and the harsh tearing sound of broken tree bark overcame all else, and Rowan was just barely able to discern a desperately loud cry of something akin to "Look out!" before he was able to tactfully roll out of the way of a greatwood tree, stabbed in the roots by a rising dune in the soil, come crashing down on the breaking patch of ground he had just been lying prone on.

Looker was no longer in sight, as the earth around the mighty crack growing in the ground had risen to an unknown height and created a great slope out of what had once been flat forest floor. Rowan was pushed into a tumbling roll down the slope and only managed to secure his foot into an engorged crevice in the ground before he was nearly whipped backwards into another small fissure.

And then all was still.

Rowan, using all of his might, managed to slowly scale the twisted slope he had been pushed down and reached the top to survey the damage. The forest around him had been absolutely leveled. The fissure that had grown between Looker and himself had become a miniature gorge that spanned an unknown distance down below. Trees had been seized by the roots and then ripped out of the ground as easily as toothpicks, sprawled about the forest and making it a veritable gauntlet of nature.

Looker was nowhere in sight, and if he had been, Rowan was not sure if he'd want to see what had become of him after all of the natural debris that had developed on his side.

Rowan's thoughts were interrupted by an ominous gust of chill air that seemed to be emanating from the gorge down the slope, and that gust became a rough wind. Rowan then, at the last minute, saw what appeared to be a rising "shockwave" that pulsed through the far east edge of the forest by raising the ground in an odd wave and kicking up everything above it some feet into the air.

"Heavens above...good God...what is this?" Rowan spoke lowly to himself before the "shockwave" reached the ground beneath him and hurled him in a racing arc far above the ground like a tossed rag doll. He could see himself rapidly meeting the face of a haphazardly supported tree towards the end of his flight, and couldn't tell if it was the relentless speed or impact that made the world go black.

* * *

Johanna had been prepared to turn the entire region upside-down if it meant being assured that her boy wasn't lost, hurt, or worse; while that was quite physically impossible, she'd be damned if she wouldn't start by ransacking the town for information. The plan had been to possibly salvage any information pertaining to two little boys making a break for the lakefront on the outskirts of Twinleaf; one with an oversized scarf and the other with a serious nervous twitch.

The plan hadn't been conceived with the idea of an earthquake rattling the entire community to its core. Just as she had been heading home after frantically inquiring about her son to the owners of the home nearest the path that led into the overgrown wilderness, the very foundation beneath her began to quietly rumble at slow intervals before erupting into a roaring thunderclap that destroyed her balance and sent her reeling on her side and sliding across the dirt-laden road.

She had no time to inspect the sharp, warm sensation trickling down her shoulder and forearm before the house she had just exited fell victim to a greatwood tree that had been ripped out of the earth by its roots and slammed into the adjacent patio, shattering windows and shearing wood.

Fighting to regain her footing, she was thrown some feet into the air by an inexplicably powerful propulsion that seemed to pulse from the ground out of nowhere. She landed on her shoulder once more, felt a bitter metallic tang of blood on her tongue, and blackness swallowed her world.

It was only by merciful fate that she had awoken on a vacant bed in the home of her friend Lucia, her wounds stinging with rubbing alcohol and wrapped in copious tight bandages. The way her white bandages trailed at the end of their wrap reminded her of the unfinished scarf she had been knitting for her son. Her son. Still lost. An earthquake had just nearly ruined her, and her Lucas was still out there.

An immediate sting of warm wetness burned inside of her eye, and then burst forth without restraint in a fountain of seasalt tears. She was so preoccupied with her own distress and dazed state of mind at the recent state of affairs that she hadn't noticed the woman Lucia rushing over from the second-story window to embrace her in an attempt to cease her fretting and a considerably tall, flash of a blonde man zip downstairs only to reappear what seemed like seconds later with a baby blue box of tissues to hand to Lucia.

Through her sobbing, she could hear Lucia's attempts at consolation through repeated "There there"'s and "Try to calm yourself, dear". To Johanna, those words seemed as hollow as the air she could breathe. What could she possibly know about...that was right. Lucia's son had gone missing along with her own, she recalled now. It didn't dilute the pain, but it did help temporarily put her sorrow in perspective. She would have to be strong if she stood any chance of being resolute in seeing Lucas return home unscathed.

Lucia broke her introversion and the silence by commenting, "You took quite a fall in that quake, dear. It must have been divine intervention that my husband here was just returning from the lakefront in his search for our little Barry and found you on the ground unconscious. We can all thank our lucky stars that he got you here before that horrible aftershock came and made things worse."

At the mention of her husband, Johanna looked past Lucia to see the man who had rushed down and back up the stairs with the tissues she was using now leaning on the window sill with his elbows crossed, shaking his head and sighing morosely at whatever caught his sight beyond the glass.

He was of exceptional height, strong-shouldered and wore a long and many-pocketed forest-green jacket that seemed worn and darkened from what could only be years of travel. The creases in his face shamelessly displayed his middle age, but belied what must have been an inner-spark in his soul that did not dare go out; he had a full head of electric, spiked blonde hair that laid back in some parts but rose into sharp points everywhere else. Dragging his gloved hands off of the window sill with a groan, he unexpectedly shook his head rapidly and rolled his shoulders before facing Johanna from across the room with what was undoubtedly a forced smile; that must have been his own strange way of regaining composure, Johanna thought to herself.

He paced over to Johanna's position, who tried to sit up but felt a flash of soreness in her side and elected to remain prone. He extended a single hand towards her, and as she shook his hand while silently grimacing at the scarred leather texture of his gloves, he punctuated their mutual exchange with "Name's Palmer. Too bad we couldn't meet under less dire circumstances."

Johanna could only mutter, "The same."

Palmer then sighed deeply, turned to face the window once more and wondered out loud, "How the heck could something like this happen right under our noses? Where was the IRC or Jubilife Radio to warn us about this? Hell, even the tectometer in Sandgem must have been able to pick up something."

Palmer's fist was visibly trembling now, and Lucia had to leave Johanna for a moment to still his arm before he could take out his frustration on something hard and inanimate.

Lucia, while rubbing Palmer's shoulder, turned to face Johanna in the bed and said, "Shortly before the quake, everything we had as a means of communication with other towns and cities stopped functioning. Radios. Televisions. Cell phones. None of those worked, and then all hell broke loose. Now with this disaster, it's even less likely that we'll be able to phone for information or help, much less leave town."

That statement just drove a stake through Johanna's weakened heart. What could possibly be done now? If the boys hadn't been killed in the quake, then there was no way to rescue them at this point. At a time like this, she could not help but think about _him_. She had not uttered _his_ name in over two years unless it was silently mouthed and cursed shortly thereafter, but when seeing Palmer and Lucia able to keep each other from the brink of meltdown while she remained a scarlet-faced mess, it was as if the man had left all over again.

He would have known what to do to stop her from doing something foolish. To say what could still her words and leave her with the understanding that all was under control, and nothing else. She had loathed and adored in the past that he could make such a complete, unabashed _woman _out of her with a mere action or utterance, but that had been how he caught her in the first place. That had been their love, at least back then.

But now he wasn't there, when she needed him the most she had since she had declared she'd be better off with him dead and gone. _Curse that man,_ she thought.. Whenever she thought of him, she remembered the miniature, dainty black box with scarlet trim he had handed her before wrenching himself out of her grip and heading off into clear skies on his damned pokémon. She decided to never open that box out of pure spite, as for all of that time, she had "known" without a doubt that it had been his wedding ring that lye in that box. That same box with which he had proposed to her over a thousand moons ago.

She had also gotten over her spite some time ago, but had yet to swallow her steadfast pride and open it to be proven wrong. Now if only she could have that accursed box with and make peace with her gods so that they may guide Lucas home, she would be somewhat pacified.

Then something hit her, as that thought crossed her mind. _Guide him home. Guide him...my God..._

Johanna did not notice that she was mouthing her thoughts quite visibly, catching the firm attention of both Palmer and Lucia looked to each other in concern and then back at her.

"The box..the box..it will guide him home...that BOX!" Johanna cried, and caused Palmer to jump back in surprise at the outburst.

Composing herself, Johanna reasoned with Lucia, "I know how we can make sure both of our boys are safe, wherever they may be."

Palmer and Lucia's eyes both snapped open at the same time, almost comically as they chorused, "What? How?"

Johanna told them both, "Call it a woman's intuition, but I believe there's something I have that can assure their safety. It's in my house...across...town.." Johanna bit her lip as she concluded that sentence. Her optimistic revelation had been extinguished by cold, hard fact. With the aftershocks still in full swing, it would be suicide to consider trekking across the small town lest they wished to be caught in a tremor or crushed by an overhanging tree.

Palmer, however, was not swayed by whatever had stilled Johanna's tongue. "It's in your home across town, you say?" Palmer asked.

Johanna meekly replied, "Y-yes. I don't know how-"

Palmer cut her off. "Forget it. I'm a father, and if it's the safety of our sons at stake, I'll risk my own arms and legs to make sure those kids see the light of day. Leave it to me."

He gave a pronounced thumbs up towards Johanna and nodded, confirming his own resolution.

Lucia was not as convinced, to say the least. "P-Palmer! Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? Those aftershocks out there could be the end of you. I've already lost my boy! I'm not losing my husband too!"

Palmer raised a finger to her trembling lips, and merely stated, "If I wanted to live forever, I wouldn't have become a pokémon trainer."

Lucia glared at him harshly, and spat "If that's the best excuse you've got, you need to read more of those cheesy one-liner booklets you love so much."

A tense silence seized the air for some choice seconds, and was only miraculously broken by the whine of a television downstairs coming to life and crackling radio static.

Palmer, who had begun to sweat, shifted his eyes from side to side and then cried, "Ah! The TV and radio are back on the air! Maybe now we'll get some answers." He then blasted off down the stairs at an inhuman speed, tripping over his own shoes along the way and reaching the bottom with his heels over his head before flipping back up and sputtering "Who put that step there?"

Lucia palmed her face and turned to Johanna, tensely asking her "Would you like to come downstairs as well, Johanna? We might be able to sort this mess out if officials know what's going on."

Johanna nodded assent and laid still until Lucia came over to brace her body for the pain of rendering itself upright, and helped her down the steps to where Palmer was attentively eying a multi-colored "stand by" screen on the television from behind a beige couch.

Lucia helped Johanna onto the couch on her back, and then sat adjacent to her to view the screen, which had oddly transformed into a countdown clock that used to be featured in older motion pictures.

3..2...1..[On Air]

The head of a young, sharp golden-eyed man with a peculiar crescent-shaped and deep blue haircut suddenly appeared staring ominously at the camera, causing all three adults to jump a bit.

As he began to speak, the sound projected from the television three seconds before the delayed relay of the radio upstairs that they had neglected to turn off. His voice was unmistakably that of a young man hardly out of his twenties, and yet it had the staggeringly slow, monotone drawl of an elderly man broken by the weakness and indifference of old age.

_Greetings, people of the Sinnoh region. If you are viewing this broadcast on the television or hearing my voice via radio transmission, chances are that you're wondering just what exactly has happened to your means of communication. I will tell you. It has been confiscated for the greater good; your good. If you have your own good held in your best interest, you will have no further questions. People within the vicinity of Verity Lakefront have undoubtedly just felt the earthquake that ravaged their homes and surroundings. That earthquake was one of our chairman's design to stabilize the public. That was not incidental. Operatives of the organization I speak for have been stationed along the natural barriers of Twinleaf and Sandgem town, and will be moving into those communities for swift evacuation practices, forcible or otherwise. Do not resist. Do not fight. Do as our people say, and none of this will have to escalate into an affair out of hand._

Johanna gasped and raised her hands to her mouth. Lucia's eyes widened in disbelief. Palmer gritted his teeth and spoke to himself "So it's an insane national hostage situation, huh?"

_I repeat. Do not fight. Do not resist. Keep your own safety in mind, and we will not have to compromise it ourselves._

Screaming could be heard from the outside. No doubt, others who had remained posted as they had had been spooked by the announcement and were making a run for it.

What followed was more disturbing. The sound of indiscernible orders being shouted followed by crashes and a screeching, barking cacophony that could only be one thing. Pokémon. Aggressive pokémon at that, who were quite obviously attacking and moving closer due to the rapidly developing volume of their scuffles.

And then, a scratching sound came scraping through the door. An intense barking echoed through the near dead-silence of Lucia and Palmer's house, and was so chaotic and irregular that they were no longer paying attention to the boy issuing subtle threats on the television and radio.

A violent thumping sound now accompanied the sound as well as an unfamiliar male voice.

"Civilians! Open up or else!"

Palmer snapped his head to Lucia, a grave and scowling expression engraved on his face, and grunted "Lucia. Take her. Upstairs. Go."

Lucia nodded quickly and helped Johanna to the base of the steps, where they slowly made their way up to the second flight, occasionally looking back to Palmer as the thumping became banging that began to loosen the doors hinges. Whoever had yelled at them to come out was kicking the door in.

Palmer looked back up to Lucia and Johanna and jerked his head in a gesture that clearly meant "NOW", and reached into his green overcoat to withdraw a single jet-black and yellow-trimmed pokéball; its color signified it being of the 'ultra' grade, the highest ranking commercially-distributed pokéball on the market.

He clicked the simple circular button on the Ultra Ball's spherical face with his thumb for it to expand in his palm and prepare for release.

Several slams later, and the hinges were torn from the wall as the door came crashing down.

* * *

Dawn Wells had always been taught the policy of "doing onto others as you would have them do to you". In her experience, people had always responded desirably when she had extended herself in the most benign way possible, even if at first they may have appeared off-standish or spiny.

So naturally, saving someone from a grueling death would be reciprocated.

What a load.

She lightly kicked a nearby stone into bay of the lake, and watched the rolling tide drag it into its deep, icy-wet grip.

What was with those two strange kids? Had they been sent there only to show her that should she try to make the world a better place, there would always be those who could never appreciate her efforts. Dawn sucked her teeth and stood up slowly, staring out onto the aquamarine horizon that was becoming a bronze gold with the light of the setting sun, a placid stare fixed onto her face.

She looked down at the pokéball in her hand that housed her beloved Chimchar, resting in his cryogenic sleep until he was to be called upon again. Something about the brilliant scarlet and white of the pokéball's spherical face that reflected the rolling light of the lakefront brought a warm nostalgia upon her dampened spirit, and it was enough to make her smile.

Her Chimchar, as much as a tragic perfectionist as it was, never faltered when there was a serious task to be done, so why should she? To hell with those two boys if they hadn't been raised with the concept of gratitude and well-meaning; if she was going to fill in the shoes as the apprentice of the professor and heir to her father's research, she couldn't be stilled by some bitter brat with a chip on his shoulder.

She nodded to herself to confirm that revelation, and brought the pokéball up to her lips to kiss it and whisper, "We're going to make it big, little buddy. Just you wait." Gazing at the lake one last time, she flipped her hair energetically with a renewed disposition and turned around to begin the trek back to Sandgem.

And that was when something felt wrong. A foreign sensation that took her in the worst way possible.

The air around her seemed to be collecting in velocity, and there was a what felt like a pit in her stomach that forced her to the ground and made her feel somewhat ill. A horrid pressure gaining in intensity until she couldn't raise her head or hear a thing beyond her still-beating heart and rushing blood.

And then, she heard a voice she had never heard before and prayed she would never have the misfortune of hearing again.

"Hello, child. Where were you going?"

A man's voice. Low, monotone, and seeming like more of a veiled command to stay where she was than a legitimate question.

Dawn wanted to speak, but in her own panic, the words crashed together in her throat and she could only choke and cough out spittle.

"You wonder who I am. I suppose since you're going to help push everything into fruition, I can tell you. I am Cyrus. That's all you need to know."

Dawn felt the word 'Cyrus' come out of his mouth all too venomously, like the deadly corrosion of a poison pokémon's attack. Her intuition blared red alarms all through her head that the man was certainly dangerous, and yet her bones felt made straw shoots that would collapse should she try to pressure them into movement.

"I..no..I have to get..home.." she finally managed to form choice words, as if they alone would be able to sway the man's motivations like a magic incantation.

Cyrus merely 'hmphed' and parroted, "Home?"

Before she could muster up the courage to say "yes", he interrupted her train of thought by continuing, "There is nothing there for you now. You people and your 'homes' are besmirching everything I plan to correct. You run through your daily machinations laying waste to one another and yourselves, and then you have the audacity to seek the recognition of the comfort of a 'home'. Cease that nonsense. What you're about to do will be far more fulfilling than the wretch you like to call a 'home', child. "

Dawn was dumbfounded. What on Earth, no, what in the world was this man on about? All that was clear was that he was not intent on allowing her passage, and that was not good in the slightest. The way he talked, he not only was not going to let her leave, but subject her to his own whims, and that was the scary part. Something needed to be done, but she was still caught beneath the hellish pressure that made her joints are immovable as old clay.

She then saw a knee lower into her vision, and an odd force push her head up to face Cyrus' visage for the first time. He had the oddest profile she had ever seen in her short life.

"Do you want to make the world a better place? I am familiar with the motivations of children such as yourself. Still naïve to the ways of true humans, you strive to correct problems you don't even have the experience to comprehend and think that somehow, the dreams implanted in your head by equally imbecilic adults will make it all better. Let me tell you, adults are the source of all of those issues in the first place. All you know is a lie."

Dawn could feel the sting of salt in her eyes and couldn't tell if it was rage, despair, or a lack of anything else to do in the heavily compromising situation.

"I'll tell ask you again. Do you want to make the world a better place? Of course you do. And you shall, if you do as I say. Now, take my hand and come without resistance."

A hand with long digits extended itself to Dawn. She didn't even have the capacity in her composure left to understand if it was from Cyrus or from heaven or hell themselves. The invisible vice grip on her body that had forced her to relinquish control was gone now, however, and that was enough.

Run.

She had to flee as fast and hard as she could, no matter what happened, and make sure to put as much distance between himself and her as possible. Anything was better than doing exactly as he said, as there could not have been beneficial products behind that course of action.

She sprung up on her hands and knees and made a dashing crawl for the face of the woods, hoping to shake out the jelly in her legs and start running, but as fate would have it, a stone underneath her heel upset her footing and she crashed onto her side, ankle smarting fiercely.

Cyrus only mechanically paced over to her prone position, hand still outstretched, and spoke the single word "Come."

Dawn, still clutching her own maroon coat with a white-knuckled grip as if it would protect her and fighting to ignore the burn beneath the skin of her ankle, stuttered "N-no. No."

Cyrus seemed to disappear for a moment before appearing right beside her and reaching down to seize her hand with a crushing grip. White-hot electric sparks seemed to dance from the point of their connection and burn her insides with no remorse.

Through her pained screams, Cyrus still spoke in a soulless tone, "You will come with me now or I will apply more force."

That was the trigger. Dawn felt the pokéball in her coat's pocket expand on it's own and the ivory light overcome all else for a split second before Chimchar's shape developed on Cyrus' shoulder and finally clear out into the fiery primate pokémon itself.

Chimchar wasted no time in opening its jaws as far as they would expand and charging licks of flame over every one of its needle-like teeth before sinking them into Cyrus' shoulder and forcing him to cease gripping Dawn's hand, which was now vibrantly bruised from only those seconds of contact.

Cyrus grabbed Chimchar by its head and tore it from his shoulder, almost wincing as blackened shreds of his uniform along with a small spray of blood from the smoking wound were ripped forth.

"I recognize that sort of assault. That was a Fire Fang attack, correct? And with killing intent. Very well. I am a man of sport aside from my demeanor, so I will appease your bloodlust."

Cyrus slammed Chimchar at Dawn's feet with herculean force, causing it to create dust cloud that made her sputter and cough. When the dust cloud cleared, Cyrus had somehow rapidly repositioned himself to stand meters away from the both of them, and had produced two pokéballs of his own.

He threw both into the air, and pure light shot from both of them, one to the earth and one to the sky. The one on the earth formed a four-legged, midnight black canine pokémon with ridges of bone encapsulating its body in choice areas and with two ram horns crowning an earless head. It flicked a thorned, arrow-head tail behind it as steaming saliva poured from its mouth. A Houndoom.

The light in the sky became a writhing, airborne mass of fluttering violet edges and two bloodshot yellow orbs in the center that became recognizable as perpetually open eyes. A wicked shine of ivory teeth contrasted with the deep purple of its body, and a purple ooze frothed forth from its mouth that corroded the grass beneath it when it dropped to the ground. A Crobat.

Chimchar bared its teeth at the two larger pokémon and hissed, "_Chiii_" as if daring them to advance. Dawn was absolutely horrified. A fight with odds of this magnitude was absolute suicide, though she doubted this man called Cyrus had ever intended to even fathom risking losing this to her. What did it matter? His abilities alone could probably subdue her Chimchar with minimal sweat.

Cyrus narrowed his eyes at her as his pokémon stared down at her own, awaiting orders. "I know what you are thinking, child. Be assured, though, I intend to level the playing field as much as I can. After all, I am a man of sport. Now, Houndoom, use Odor Sleuth."

The Houndoom growled deeply as its eyes glowed a bloody red and it applied its inhuman sense of smell to detect all odors present on Dawn's Chimchar, who was now enveloped in an aura of green that prevented it from moving a muscle to evade assault. The Houndoom then barked to signify that the attack was completed.

Cyrus nodded in satisfaction, and then said "Good. You've detected the smell of them, as I've expected. Now, go find this child's two acquaintances and do as you must."

The Houndoom barked with great bass and before Dawn or Chimchar could react, it rapidly bounded off into the woods and made a great dash towards locating and dealing with the targets it had just been assigned.

Dawn was frozen in terror as she realized what had just happened. She would be helpless to try and stop his Houndoom from accomplishing its mission as long as Cyrus and the Crobat still had them pinned to the lakefront with no chance of escape. She held her aching head as the world became a whirling, sickening blur and felt as if she could lose whatever was in her stomach right then and there.

What to do? She was a puppet to his game in whatever course of action she took, and would be killed in a flash if she dared tried to defy the rules. What would happen to those kids? What would happen to Chimchar.

"_Ook!_"

She heard her Chimchar's cry to help her regain her composure, and saw its crystal blue eyes stare into hers with a fire that matched the kind coursing through its own veins. _That's right...it's like earlier._

Dawn supported herself on one trembling knee with her Chimchar's help, and stared at Cyrus' indifferent expression with a look that channeled all the defiance of the world in one hotblooded stare. Her right hand was too damaged to form a fist. Her ankle was cracked. The boys had their own doom racing towards them at a speed even she couldn't be sure of, and Chimchar stood no chance against its opponent. She could be killed or abducted at a moment's notice regardless of how the battle went.

And she was going to put up whatever fight she could, and not go under without her pride.

Cyrus flatly asked in an abject tone, "Have you decided?"

Dawn whipped her head gaze back to Chimchar, nodded at him, and fiercely pointed at the leering Crobat hovering above Cyrus.

Chimchar, noticing the silent command, reflexively extinguished it's exhaust flame and collected a copious amount of heat in its belly, poking out its small chest as it did so.

"_CHAAAA!"_

The exhaust flame kicked into full gear as Chimchar exhaled and let loose a rumbling, roaring stream of fire that broke off from its mouth and rocketed towards both Cyrus and Crobat at an incredible force and velocity, developing into a burning star before consuming them both in a red hot vortex.

The massive orb of flame split into two and dissolved when Cyrus extended his arms out to both sides and pushed to dispel air that forced it all into the surrounding vicinity, turning a good portion of the lakefront's greenery into charred husks.

The Crobat, still enveloped in fire, spiraled into the air like a fiery torpedo and extended all four wings at once, instantly extinguishing the effect of the attack.

Cyrus' brow furrowed and he spoke lowly, "So that's your answer. It makes no difference to me." He shot out one arm towards Dawn and Chimchar and pushed them back with a blast of gale, and the Crobat flitted about in the air before darting at them in a zig-zag with its mouth ajar, seeping acidic venom.

_This is our calling, Chimchar._

Chimchar shielded itself from the wind and anchored itself in the ground with its retractable nails, fighting to keep an eye on Dawn and its advancing opponent as well.

_Let's make sure we see it through to the end_.

The Crobat's wing tips shone with a magenta light as it flew, the lower wings scarring the grass with corrosive venom as a a blood-red 'X' began to form in the center of its body. Chimchar ignited yet another scalding fire in its maw.

_Whatever happens. Let's not falter._

* * *

**_End_ Part 4: Part Five is under progress and on the way!**


End file.
